Why Mikel Arteta used professional pickpockets to teach his Arsenal players a lesson

The world of football management can be a weird and wonderful place sometimes, with some of the game’s most iconic bosses using bizarre methods to get the most out of the players.

Back in 1998, Argentina boss Daniel Passarella banned players from having long hair, dropping Claudio Caniggia and Fernando Redondo from his squad, as he believed long hair made players lose concentration.

Marcelo Bielsa famously got his Leeds United squad to pick up litter for an afternoon in order for the players to appreciate how hard fans have to work to afford a match ticket, while Felix Magath once told his Fulham defender Brede Hangeland to treat a knee injury with a block of cheese soaked in alcohol.

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We can now add another brilliantly outside-the-box tactic to this list, as Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta secretly hired a team of professional pickpockets to swipe his players’ phones and wallets during a team dinner, according to The Athletic.

Once the meal was over, the Spanard instructed his squad to stand up and empty their pockets, with several players missing valuable items, the report adds.

The lesson here? Always be ready, alert and prepared, even when you’re among friends and colleagues at dinner.

Arteta is currently preparing for his fifth full season as Arsenal boss and has overseen consistent improvement during this period, with the Gunners set to be genuine title contenders again this season, after taking the title race into the final weekend last time out.

The 42-year-old has form for offbeat ideas, with the club’s ‘All or Nothing’ documentary that went behind the scenes during the 2021/22 season showing him playing Liverpool chants over a speaking during a trip to Anfield as one of his self-confessed ‘crazy ideas’.

The programme also showed Arteta using a lightbulb to motivate his players during a team talk, while the boss has also introduced a chocolate Labrador called ‘Win’ to the Arsenal training ground to help foster a family atmosphere at the club.

This latest anecdote shows that Arteta is continuing to zig where other managers would zag and we’re all for that.

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